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SALT LAKE CITY — This past April, Oklahoma State University (OSU) meat specialist Jacob Nelson announced he had discovered a new cut of meat similar to the New York strip steak in flavor and tenderness. But OSU isn't sharing the secret behind their masterpiece, the Vegas Strip Steak. That is . . . until they get their patent.
So what exactly is OSU patenting? How does one obtain a patent for the most recently discovered cut of steak and one of the first to get its own patent?
"The patent actually claims the kind of knife strokes that you make in order to create this cut of meat," said Steve Price from OSU. "You take this muscle, you make cuts here, here and here, and you end up with this Vegas Strip Steak."
The patent actually claims the kind of knife strokes that you make in order to create this cut of meat. You take this muscle, you make cuts here, here and here, and you end up with this Vegas Strip Steak.
–Steve Price, OSU
After securing a patent, the university plans to charge a licensing fee to packing plants that would sell the steak to the restaurants.
While reading about this exciting new development in the world of steak, I began to wonder if there's something I should patent. What about the way I cut carrots? Can I patent it? Should I patent it? How different do my carrot- cutting techniques have to be from other carrot-cutting patents?
Local patent attorney Brandon Roper with Austin Rapp & Hardman answered a couple of common questions to help determine if we should all be rushing to obtain patents.
What's worth patenting?
In law school, the general rule taught to us was that unless damages were over $1 million, it wasn't worthwhile to litigate a patent. While you can still gain income from a patent (such as by licensing it), the fact is that most patents aren't likely to have over $1 million in damages. For example, suppose you invent a new pencil that is much better than the original pencil (maybe it stays sharp for three times as long). Are people willing to spend three times as much for a better pencil? And until your competitor has sold $1 million worth of pencils that infringe on the patent, it isn't worth it to sue. And even then, it's not a guarantee that you will win.
What are the requirements for a patent?
You have to have invented something. Determining whether something is new or not is complicated. First, start by doing an Internet search to see if someone has come up with anything similar. Second, they should do a thorough search of the U.S. patent published and issued databases on USPTO.gov. There is, however, an 18-month period when a newly filed patent is not yet published. So, your search isn't going to turn up anything that was filed within the last 18 months.
Can I write my own patent?
Generally, you want an attorney that is trained in the specific field of your invention. For example, I have an electrical engineering degree. I write only electrical engineering patents. I would not be a good choice for writing a patent on pencils (since that patent is likely to involve mechanical or chemical engineering). In the same vein, hiring a chemical engineer to write a patent on cell phones is not going to produce a very good patent. You are severely limited in what changes you can make to the patent application after it has been filed. So you only get one shot to write the patent.
What happens after you submit a patent?
After filing it, you can expect the patent office to sit on it for three years. They are busy and backlogged. Once they do review your patent, they will inevitably deny everything you requested. I imagine that most people are discouraged and think they are done. Truth is, every well- written patent application is denied on the first time (referred to as an office action from the patent examiner). That's because the best patents are obtained by purposefully writing something that is overbroad and then systematically narrowing the patent and providing arguments until the examiner is satisfied. Again, you can do this yourself, but I don't recommend it. Each back and forth costs money (to the patent attorney and every other time requires an additional fee to the USPTO). Thus, you can expect a patent's total cost to be at least $12,000 - $20,000 on average.
Is there a way to speed up the process?
You can make a petition to receive accelerated examination. The USPTO will review such a petition and make a decision concerning accelerated examination. In the United States, you are granted a one-year grace period for disclosure. In other words, if I present my invention to the public (there are many ways to disclose an invention, ranging from submitting the invention in a college paper to giving a presentation at a trade show to offering to sell your product to someone), I have one year to file an application for the invention in the United States. If I don't do it in one year, I have lost the rights to that invention. Most foreign countries have no such grace period. So the moment you disclose your invention here in the United States, you are barred from obtaining a patent in most foreign countries unless you have already filed an application there.
